Book disposal prompts librarian to action
Press-Enterprise 2/26/07
A $60 million project to renovate and expand the library at Cal Poly Pomona is at the center of a controversy about the future of libraries as university libraries nationwide grapple with their changing role and space needs.
The Pomona campus is the third most popular choice in the state university system among college-bound students in the Inland region.
The Cal Poly Pomona dispute has grown more heated in recent weeks with the launching of an online petition calling for a moratorium on the disposal of books and police questioning of the librarian, Bruce Emerton, who started the petition.
Emerton said on Friday that he took down the Web site Wednesday afternoon after receiving a letter from a California State University attorney asking him to cease and desist any use of the Cal Poly Pomona name.
The letter, from university counsel Marlene B. Jones, said that the names of all Cal State campuses are property of the state and if Emerton did not stop using the name, the university might take legal action.
Making Space
The university's library project calls for the addition of more than 100,000 square feet and the renovation of about 91,000 square feet, increasing the facility's square footage by about 40 percent. Among the planned new features: a full-service cafe with wireless accessibility and indoor and outdoor seating, 23 group study rooms and a two-story reading room.
The library's dean, Harold B. Schleifer, said that the additional space is needed to meet growing enrollment and that the new library will have movable-aisle shelving to accommodate books and other materials. He said that nothing was discarded that patrons would not still be able to access through a library-sharing consortium.
But some are questioning whether the library has discarded too many books and other printed items from its 700,000-plus collection to make room for what library officials are calling "people space." As Cal Poly Pomona's library, like many nationwide, shifts toward an increasingly digital collection, the central question is whether printed materials will still be at the core of the university library's mission.
Emerton, a longtime Cal Poly librarian, launched the online petition called "Save Our Books" three weeks ago at www.calpolylibrary.com because he was upset about what he says are the dumping of books. He is calling for a halt to the disposal of books, journals and other printed materials and an independent audit of all items that have been discarded.
"We've gone beyond weeding. We're dumping," Emerton said.
"I just think books deserve a little more respect than that -- a little more thought," he said.
Emerton also is concerned about the reliability of digital materials.
Emerton said the library "has already dumped" tens of thousands of books and that there is a threat that 300,000 more books will be destroyed. He said he has considered leaving the library after seeing books taken to trash bins.
'Pruning the Collection'
Emerton, a Nuevo resident, also distributed postcards about the petition on campus about three weeks ago. He said he became more concerned when police interviewed him after he was passing them out on his lunch hour.
Campus police received a complaint about Emerton distributing the postcards and questioned him about it, said Lt. Daniel Ponder, of the Cal Poly Pomona Police Department. Since receiving the university's letter warning against use of the Cal Poly name, Emerton has stopped handing out the postcards.
Ponder said that campus police have determined this is not a criminal matter and have forwarded their information to Cal Poly Pomona administration. There has been no further action, campus officials said.
Schleifer, the library's dean, said the library has discarded about 29,000 volumes of books and about 6,700 volumes of journals. The items were chosen after librarians identified materials that had not been used for at least 10 years and would still be available in hard copy through a resource-sharing consortium.
"We didn't blindly say, 'Oh, it had no use in 10 years,' and discarded them," Schleifer said. "We're very careful and conservative about the discard program."
"It's a matter of pruning the collection," Schleifer said. "Every library does it."
Some students disagree with the library's actions.
Justin Wood, a junior and an architecture major, posted his name on Emerton's Web site to show his opposition to books he said he saw thrown in the trash.
"They could have done something other than just toss them," said Wood, 20. "I think it kind of de-emphasizes the purpose of having a library."
Construction on the new library began about a year ago and is scheduled to be completed in September 2008.